


Carnival: Trial by Fire

by Estelle (Fielding)



Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: B99 Fall 2019 Fic Exchange, F/M, Santiago Family, Very fluffy, zero angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-16
Updated: 2019-10-16
Packaged: 2020-12-17 06:37:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,552
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21049949
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fielding/pseuds/Estelle
Summary: Amy takes Jake to the Santiago family's annual carnival -- and introduces her to every one of her seven brothers. Will their relationship survive??? (Yes. There is seriously no angst in here.)





	Carnival: Trial by Fire

**Author's Note:**

  * For [loudamy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/loudamy/gifts).

> This story was written for the Tumblr Fall 2019 Fic Exchange. Vickovac, I was SO EXCITED to get you as my prompter because I love your writing so much and your prompts were all fantastic. I hope you like this!
> 
> Thank you to my always amazing beta, Drowninginmyworries.
> 
> The prompt I chose: The Santiagos have an annual family tradition and Amy takes Jake along (fluff, early established relationship).

**Part 1: Amy**

Jake had splurged on express delivery but the new mattress still wasn’t scheduled to arrive until the weekend, so they were at Amy’s apartment, in Amy’s bed, under Amy’s floral comforter when she dropped the bomb.

“I talked to my mom today,” Amy said, casual-like, her nose in a crossword puzzle. Maybe too casual-like.

“Hm,” Jake said. He was playing a game on his phone. Amy peeped over his shoulder at the screen. It looked like it involved harvesting pumpkins, which was season-appropriate, at least.

“I told her about us.”

Jake gave her a side glance, then set his phone in his lap. “You did?”

“I did.”

Jake waited while Amy pretended to return to her puzzle, tapping the cap of her pen against her lower lip. Finally he chuckled and tore the paper out of her hands.

“Jake-”

“What did she say? Are we in the clear or is this going to be a Romeo and Juliet situation?”

“For the last time, we’re never going to be a Romeo and Juliet situation.” Amy said, scowling at him. “Do you still not remember how that play ends?”

“No, and stop trying to avoid the question.”

“Jake, it’s a double suici-” But she noted the stormy look on Jake’s face and caved. “She’s happy for me – for us. She’s only disappointed that she can’t be here for Thanksgiving so my dad’s going to get to meet you before she does.”

Jake chuckled. “Is everything in your family a competition?”

“Yes.”

Jake gave her a slow nod at that, the look on his face part bemused, part concerned – Amy figured she was going to see a lot more of that when it came to her family – but then he smiled. And it was a smile that made his whole face go soft, his eyes wide and warm, and she couldn’t resist leaning in to kiss his mouth.

“Thank you,” Jake said, gentle and sincere, when she’d pulled away.

“You’re welcome,” Amy said.

They both sat back against the headboard again, phone and puzzle in hands. Amy bit her lip and glanced at his profile. He looked so relaxed, so content, that she almost felt bad. 

“Mom also said this means you have to come to the annual carnival.”

Jake hummed his acknowledgment again, then his brows knit in bemusement and he said, “What now?”

“It’s a Santiago tradition,” Amy said. “You’re going to love it.”

In truth, she thought he might hate it. There was a slim but real chance their relationship might not survive it.

“A carnival,” Jake said. He nodded to himself and then grinned at her. “Sounds fun, babe.”

She did not correct him.

**Part 2: Nick**

The carnival was really more of a neighborhood block party, started by Victor Santiago back when he was a sergeant in the 103rd precinct. The Santiago children had been enlisted as volunteers since the very first carnival, when it was just a barbecue and some folding chairs and kids kicking rotten Halloween pumpkins in the street. Over the years it had become a neighborhood institution, with hundreds of people turning out over the afternoon and into the evening – it was a way for families old and new to reconnect, for residents to take pride in their community, and for the local cops to show their soft underbellies and let kids throw pies in their faces.

Victor and Camila had moved away years ago, but the Santiago siblings by unspoken agreement had kept up their participation. Though the Santiagos no longer organized the event and none of them lived in the neighborhood anymore, they always attended, along with a growing cadre of Amy’s nieces and nephews and associated girlfriends and boyfriends and in-laws. Not one sibling had missed a single carnival – not Amy when she’d been sick with pneumonia, or Ivan when his wife had given birth two days before, or David, who had turned down a commendation from the mayor so he could attend the 2012 fair. (He got the medal anyway, in a private ceremony at the mayor’s own home. Bruce Willis had been there. It was a long story. Amy planned to never tell Jake.)

Some might say it had become a competition among Amy and her brothers to see who would attend the most carnivals. Amy just called it a nice family tradition.

As she walked hand in hand with Jake up the subway stairs, she could hear the screeches of small children and the familiar strains of Cuban salsa coming from above. The exit deposited them half a block from the carnival, which was just getting started, volunteers hustling around with arms full of raffle tickets and platters of meat to be barbecued even as the first families with young children began meandering among the booths. Autumn-colored streamers were strung between tents and someone had dusted the ground with straw to add to the seasonal effect. Amy could already smell the odd but intoxicating aroma of roasting meat and pumpkin spice.

She insisted on paying the $5 entry for each of them, then paused to take a deep breath and smile at the familiarity of it all. She turned to Jake to ask what he thought, and his eyes were warm and bright as he took it in. She took his left arm in both her hands and snuggled in close to him, suddenly so happy to have him here in this place like home.

And then he was tugged right out of her hands and she looked up to find Nick with an arm slung around Jake’s shoulders – or more like his neck – in a fairly aggressive way.

“Nick!”

“Sorry, sis, this is Jake, right? I need to borrow him for a minute. Jake, I’m Nick, Amy’s favorite little brother.”

“Uh-” Jake said.

As he was dragged away, Jake looked back over his shoulder at Amy, all the warmth from just a moment before replaced by wide-eyed fear. Amy waved at him and called after Nick, “You’d better not break him! Nick!”

An hour later, after helping one of the neighborhood abuelitas sell raffle tickets, Amy excused herself and went hunting for her boyfriend. She found him in a booth amid the snack tents. He was grinning madly as he handed an enormous pile of cotton candy, wound precariously atop a cardboard stick, to a girl who couldn’t have been older than 5, and whose mother looked horrified. The spun sugar was bright pink and larger than the child’s head.

Jake saw Amy and his eyes went wide and he frantically looked all around the tent, then mouthed “help me.” He had wisps of pink and blue sugar in his hair and the wild-eyed look of a man who’d been eating samples of pure sugar for an hour. Amy grabbed his sticky hand and hissed, “come with me,” and snuck him out the back, right under Nick’s nose.

**Part 3: Omar**

She took him to one of the family restrooms to wash up, though there wasn’t much they could do for his hair – the sugar seemed to have embedded itself in his curls. Amy had only the faintest memories of eating cotton candy as a child, of the way it melted on her tongue like something ephemeral and unnatural, not entirely of this world. She was afraid that some kind of chemical reaction had taken place on Jake’s head.

“I’m sorry about that. I don’t know what Nick was thinking putting you on cotton candy duty right out of the gate,” Amy said, as they left the bathroom, Jake still scrubbing his hair with a paper towel.

He shrugged and smiled at her easily enough. “I love cotton, and I love candy, I just had no idea that when you put them together things got so…sticky.”

“You know that cotton candy isn’t cotton.”

“You’re so cute when you’re wrong,” Jake said, and kissed her on the forehead. “Anyway, Nick was nice.”

“Nice? Nick?”

“Sure,” Jake said, shooting her a bemused look. “Is he not nice?”

“He’s not not-nice,” Amy said, which seemed to confuse Jake even more. “He’s just-”

But then Omar sprung up between them, as if out of thin air, and slid his arms around both of their shoulders.

“Amy! I can’t believe you haven’t introduced me yet!”

Amy rolled her eyes and said to Jake, “Jake, this is my brother Omar. Omar, Jake.”

“Much better. Now off you go, Amy. Mrs. Hernandes was asking for you over at the cake walk,” Omar said, and began to push Amy away, definitely with more force than a cake walk required.

She reached for Jake’s hand, but Omar batted her away. “I’ve got your boy,” he said. “Jake, you look like a man who knows a thing or two about ring tossing…” And they faded into the crowd.

When Mrs. Hernandes released her from the cake walk – “Uptown Funk” was going to be playing in her head for the rest of her life – Amy wandered back over to the game booths, and found Jake easily enough. The ring toss was surrounded by kids five or six deep, and when she squirmed her way to the front she couldn’t even manage surprise at what she saw. Jake and Omar stood side by side, fire in their eyes and plastic rings in hand as a bedraggled looking volunteer straightened the lines of two-liter bottles they would be aiming for.

“Best of ten tosses,” Omar said.

Jake narrowed his eyes and smirked, and Amy instantly recognized his game face. “I win, I get to date your sister.”

“Hey!” Amy said.

“Oh hey, babe,” Jake said cheerfully, grinning at her before returning his stony stare to Omar.

Omar glowered and said, “I win, you still get to date my sister and you have to play Santa Claus at my kids’ Christmas pageant.”

They shook on it, and Amy honestly was so embarrassed for both of them that she couldn’t bear to watch.

“The trophy is going to see if they need any help with the puppet show,” Amy said, and squeezed her way back through the crowd. She rolled her eyes as the kids erupted into cheers when someone scored a point.

**Part 4: Ivan**

Amy ate lunch with a few of her old neighbors, laughing over plates of carnitas as she got caught up on all the gossip on the kids she’d grown up with. After, she figured it was about time to hunt down Jake again and make sure he hadn’t been handcuffed to a lamppost by one of her brothers as a prank. She shivered at the recollection of the Carnival ‘03 Incident.

She’d gone two circuits of the carnival, and was starting to get concerned that he’d been smuggled off-site, before she found him – and did an immediate double-take. He was in the face-painting booth, eyes narrowed as he carefully traced the delicate, unmistakable lines of a butterfly wing on the cheek of a little boy. Jake was intensely focused, his tongue stuck in one corner of his mouth, hand holding the child’s head in place while he worked. It was sweet to see him so attentive, but that wasn’t what had caught Amy’s eye.

It was the pink unicorn painted on one of Jake’s cheeks, with a rainbow of poop shooting out of its butt and across his forehead.

Amy smacked her hand over her mouth to keep from laughing out loud. Her only option was a hasty retreat. She backed up a few steps, careful not to draw his attention, then spun on her heel and prepared to make a run for it. Only she ran smack into Ivan, the tallest and widest of her brothers. He caught her around the forearms and steadied her when she bounced right of his chest.

“Whoa, where you off to so fast?” Ivan said.

Amy looked back over her shoulder at Jake, but he was still working on his butterfly. Her eyes watered from the effort of not laughing.

“I have to help with the, uh, thing,” Amy said, waving her hand vaguely. She was glad Ivan was not the brightest of her brothers.

“Okay, just look where you’re going,” he said, and Amy nodded vigorously.

She started to walk away, but turned after a moment and said, “Ivan, what do you think about Jake?”

Ivan looked back into the tent at Jake, and shrugged. “Seems like a good guy. He’s kind of a shitty face painter, though.”

**Part 5: Tony**

“Amy! Hey, Amy! Santiago!”

Amy looked up from the table where she was making beaded friendship bracelets with a group of 9-year-old girls. Tony was poking his head through the back of the craft tent.

“What’s up?”

“Your boyfriend, does he have any allergies?”

Amy frowned and narrowed her eyes at him. “Bees,” she said.

“Okay, but no, like, food allergies?”

“Not that I know of,” Amy said.

“Does he have a heart condition?” Amy shook her head. “What about phobias? Fear of heights? Enclosed spaces? How is he with spiders?”

“Tony-”

“Oh! There he is. Later, sis!”

Tony disappeared and Amy wondered if she should follow him.

“I think your boyfriend might be in trouble,” one of the 9-year-olds said.

Amy propped her chin in her hand and nodded.

“Do you think he’ll break up with you if he gets bit by a spider?” another 9-year-old said.

“No, he’d probably think that’s really cool,” Amy said.

The girls all nodded sagely.

“Boys,” one said.

“Men,” Amy said, and knotted a new bracelet for Jake.

**Part 6: Eddie**

She wasn’t dumb or naïve. She’d expected her brothers to run Jake through the gauntlet at the annual carnival. She just hadn’t expected to see him sitting atop a pony that her 3-year-old nephew was pulling along by a rope.

“Isn’t he a little big for the pony?” Amy said to Eddie, who was leaning against the fenced enclosure and chewing on a blade of hay.

“Mason was scared so Jake offered to show him it was no big deal,” Eddie said.

Amy nodded and hoped that Mason didn’t noticed the white-knuckled grip Jake had on the saddle horn. At least it was a large pony – she thought it might actually be a small horse – so Jake probably wasn’t going to break its back. That would really freak out the children. Amy dug her phone out of her jacket pocket and debated briefly over whether to take photos or video, before deciding on both.

“Jake’s all right,” Eddie said, after the pony had trotted a few loops.

Amy slipped her phone back in her pocket and crossed her arms over the top of the fence, and hummed her agreement. Jake was the first boyfriend she’d brought to one of these carnivals, and though she’d been nervous for him because her brothers were all competitive jerks (she loved them, really), she hadn’t doubted for a second that they would like him. Her parents were going to be the real test.

When Mason finally called the pony to a stop with a very firm “whoa,” Jake slid off the animal’s back and walked a bit bow-legged to where they were watching.

“Nice riding, cowboy,” Amy said, grinning up at him. The pooping unicorn paint-job was still in remarkably good shape.

Jake kissed her on the cheek and tilted his head to one side to say in her ear, “If you tell anyone-”

“I already sent the photos to Gina.”

She kissed the corner of his mouth and backed up with a little wave.

“You’re a demon!” Jake called after her. “A harvest demon! That’s a thing!”

Amy blew him a kiss as Eddie threw an arm over his shoulder and pulled him back to the ponies.

**Part 7: David**

Amy was sipping Mexican hot chocolate, watching the older couples dancing as the sun started to set and everything was turning golden and a little fuzzy around the edges, when Manny sidled up next to her and gave her a one-armed hug. She knew they were both thinking about their parents, and how they’d always closed down the carnival dancing, until they were the only couple left on the floor. When Amy was a child, the carnival wasn’t over until Victor dipped Camila and kissed her in front of everyone, and all the old men and women whistled and cheered and the kids groaned, and finally the last of the colored lights strung up and down the blocks were turned off.

“Where’s Jake?” she said to Manny, after they’d watched in silence for a while.

Manny fumbled in his jeans pocket and pulled out his phone. “According to the group text, he’s in the first aid tent with David.”

“Group text?” Amy said with a frown. “I haven’t had anything on the group text all day.”

“Oh, right.” Manny scratched the back of his neck, looking sheepish. “Uh-”

“Oh my god. I’m not on this group text,” Amy said, a cold realization washing over her. “You guys really are trying to break my boyfriend.”

“Not break!” Manny said, throwing his hands up. “Just, you know, bend. A little.”

Amy groaned and rolled her eyes. “You guys are aware that it’s 2015 and I’m in my 30s and basically half of you are younger than me, right?”

“Yeah, we know-”

“Also, Jake can handle whatever you losers throw at him so bring it,” Amy said, and downed the rest of her hot chocolate. “And yes, I know I’m being a hypocrite but I’ve got the moral high ground here.”

She gave Manny a quick hug and punched him – hard – in the shoulder and took off for the first aid tent. Though David was probably the least likely of her brothers to cause physical damage to Jake, she was still deeply unsettled by the idea of them spending time alone together. Amy knew she was being just a little bit hysterical, but still: What if Jake liked David more than he liked her?

As Amy neared the back of the tent, she heard David before she saw him. “And now you peel off the plastic strip – no, not both sides at once! Wait, here, let me-”

“I know how to put on a Band-Aid,” said Jake.

“But there’s the correct way and there’s the way that lets flesh-eating bacteria fester,” said David.

The sudden loud sob of a child cut off the rest of their conversation. Amy smirked to herself and poked her head into a break between tent flaps. Jake was crouched beside a chair, and a curly-haired little boy was clinging to him like a monkey, face buried in Jake’s shoulder. David stood over them, cleaning his hands with a disinfectant wipe.

“I’ll radio the on-duty officers and see if they’ve had any luck finding his mom,” David said and headed toward the front of the tent.

“Yeah, you do that,” Jake muttered. He stood with the child still hanging off him, then settled himself in the chair and arranged the kid so he was curled on his lap. The boy looked like he was 4 or 5, and he had a fresh bandage on one knee and tears smudging the tiger stripes painted on his face.

“What’s flesh-eating bacteria?” the boy said with a hiccup.

Jake stroked a palm over the boy’s hair and said, “It’s like cooties, but for adults. And don’t tell anyone, okay, but that guy? He’s covered in flesh-eating bacteria.”

“Is that why his face looks so stuck up?” the boy said. Amy had to stuff her fist in her mouth to keep from laughing out loud.

“Yep,” Jake said, patting the kid on top of the head. “You’ve got it.”

Jake and the kid made up a long, complicated, very detailed story about the origin of flesh-eating bacteria and how David got it. Amy watched them until the boy’s mom showed up, and he gave Jake a hug and made Jake kiss his knee. Both of her legs were asleep by the time she stood up and limped off to her next volunteer assignment. It was worth it.

**Part 8: Manny**

“There’s no way I can do this, Ames. I give up!”

“Oh- well, okay. You want to go home then?” Amy tried to keep the disappointment out of her voice. He’d been doing so well.

“What? No! I meant how am I supposed to pick a winner when they all look the same?” He gestured desperately at the costumed kids lining up on the parade route. “There are like 20 Jedi knights out there!”

“Oh yeah,” Amy said, peering over his shoulder.

Jake had been “randomly selected” as the sole judge of this year’s costume contest – the main event of the carnival for the neighborhood kids. (It was one of the holdovers from the earliest carnivals, which had always taken place around Halloween. The year they’d moved the carnival into mid-November they’d canceled the contest, and the kids had revolted. Nick, the youngest of the Santiagos and the only one still dressing up for Halloween, had led the riots.) Manny had told Jake that costume judge was a position of high honor as he placed the paper crown on Jake’s head. But Amy could tell Jake wasn’t buying it.

Indeed, it was a vastly unenviable job. There were three dozen eager, doe-eyed 3- to 10-year-olds vying for the prize. And 11 of them were Santiagos.

“You know, back when I was a kid we valued creativity,” Jake said, still staring down the Jedis.

“Oh yeah?” said Manny, who was half-heartedly trying to get the kids to line up by height. “And what’d you dress up for Halloween?”

“Are you sure you weren’t John McClane very year?” Amy said.

“I will give you ages 7 through 14,” Jake said.

“Fourteen?” Amy said, horrified.

“I meant 10,” Jake said. “Anyway. Before that I was a scarecrow-”

“Cute,” Amy said.

“E.T.”

“Adorable,” Manny said.

“Airline pilot.”

“Oh, that’s sad,” Amy said.

“Yeah. Then the next year I was George Michael.”

“Wait-” Amy said. “What?” Manny said.

“I was 6 and my mom was going through some stuff and listening to a lot of ‘Careless Whisper’ and you know what, never mind,” Jake said.

Someone blew a whistle then, loud enough to make a bunch of kids start crying. Amy wasn’t surprised to see David was the source – he was waving his arms wildly at Manny, clearly annoyed by the chaos on the parade line. Amy kissed Jake on the (non-unicorn) cheek and wished him good luck, and took her place with the rest of the volunteers wrangling kids. Jake sat alone on a folding chair that had been draped in fake orange velvet, with crepe-paper autumn leaves stapled all over. The costume judge was also deemed the carnival king (or queen), though Amy didn’t think anyone had told Jake that. They also probably hadn’t told him that when the judging was over he’d be manhandled to the official pie-throwing wall, which was sort of self-explanatory. Amy quickly checked her phone to make sure she had plenty of storage.

“Monster Mash” suddenly blasted out over the speakers mounted around the parade block and the first kids marched off in front of Jake. Amy stepped back and watched with a grin as Jake sat straight in his chair, the same focus in his eyes that she’d seen a hundred times when he was surveying a crime scene, not missing a thing. Manny came up on one side of her and Omar on the other, and she felt more than saw them make eye contact over the top of her head.

“Stop talking about me,” she said, nudging them both with her elbows.

“I’m just saying, if he doesn’t pick Matthew, your boy’s in trouble,” Omar said.

“Oh please,” Amy said, “that little Taylor Swift’s got it in the bag.”

**Part 9: Amy**

Amy toed off her sneakers and climbed through the flap of the bounce house. It was well past dark, but in the dim, checkered light cast by the streetlamps, she had no problem making out Jake, sprawled spread eagle in the middle of the plastic floor. His eyes were closed, and tufts of whipped cream still clung to his curls, and though most of the painted unicorn was long gone she could still make out a smudge of rainbow poop across his brow.

She smiled to herself and crawled toward him, the inflated structure squeaking and wobbling under her weight. She stretched out beside him, and rested her head against his chest. He smelled like ponies and apple cider and sweet-rotten pumpkin and barbecue – like all of her best childhood memories. When he lifted a hand to stroke back her hair, she saw that he had about a dozen friendship bracelets on his arm, and a gauze bandage wrapped carelessly around his palm.

“Did I pass?” he said, voice still a bit croaky after all the yelling during the pie-throwing.

“With flying colors,” Amy said, and snuggled deeper into his side. She took his hand and kissed the palm, not sure if she wanted to know what had happened there. “Are you okay?”

“Hm,” he hummed, and she glanced up to see that he was smiling.

Amy let them lie there for a while, listening to the faint, familiar strains of bossa nova and imagining the couples dancing under the fairy lights. Maybe one day she and Jake would be one of those old couples, closing down the carnival while their sleepy children watched quietly and drank the last of the hot chocolate. She knew she was getting way ahead of herself – they’d only been dating a couple of months, after all – but she let herself indulge in the fantasy, just for now.

When she finally started to get cold, and she could hear the calls of volunteers tearing down tents, she sat up slowly and kissed Jake on a clean spot on his forehead, and then again on the mouth. She couldn’t resist lingering there, lips parting without a thought. She felt his sigh as he opened his mouth to her, letting her in. She was just starting to get warmed up when she went to run her fingers through his hair and got caught in a sticky tangle of sugar-coated curls. Amy chuckled into his mouth and pulled away.

“Come on,” she said, wiping her hand on her jeans, “let’s go home.”

He groaned sleepily and said, “This bounce house is home, Ames. I live here now.”

Amy laughed and tugged on both of his hands until he reluctantly sat up. “That new mattress isn’t going to break itself in, you know.”

At that Jake ducked his head and laughed, and they both clambered awkwardly out of the house, and crouched to slide their shoes back on. Amy took his hand again and led him away from the lights and the noise of the clean-up crews – she figured they’d earned an early exit.

“Next year I think I’ll just stick with the ring toss. Maybe face-painting if I can get Ivan to teach me how to do a dragon,” Jake said.

“Next year?” Amy said.

“Yeah,” Jake said, looping his arm over her shoulders. “And next year, David is carnival king.”

THE END


End file.
